Russian Boss’s Secret Baby by Bella King
Chapter 1
Bonnie
I’ve gotten too good at this, but it’s the only way to provide for my three boys at home. I hope that one day, they’ll grow to respect women, but until they’re old enough to know right from wrong, I’ll take the wrong path.
“Where are you going? I paid for extra.”
I can smell the thick scent of beer and cigarettes on his breath, the only thing I ever seem to smell in this godforsaken place. No amount of jasmine and sugar body spray can mask that smell. It clings to my hair and seeps into the deepest layers of my skin.
“Honey, you paid for a dance, and that’s what you got,” I say, trying to keep my tone firm while remaining sexy.
“I tipped you,” the nameless man says lamely, smacking my bare ass and almost falling off the red faux-leather couch.
“And I gave you an extra five minutes,” I say, pulling my panties back up and adjusting the blue bow on the front. “Maybe you can buy me a drink. I feel like getting fucked up tonight.”
It’s the same old tired script, but it works. Everyone comes in thinking they’re going to take one of us home, but the only thing they take home is a hangover and an empty wallet. I come home with dirty piles of cash and what little dignity I can scrape off the bottom of my six-inch, LED heels.
Oh yeah, and also a hangover. I’d like to say the party days are behind me, but sometimes a bit of booze takes the edge off. It’s better than what some of the women here do. Snorting mystery powders off mirrors used to be a weekend hobby for me, but now I avoid it like the plague. I’m trying to put that behind me.
My client, a man with dwindling cash, stumbles out of the room, eager to get back to the bar and get me drunk, so that he can have a chance at taking me home. What he doesn’t know is that I have triplets, and a babysitter who expects me back by morning. I’m not going anywhere with anyone tonight.
Or any night, for that matter. I’ve sworn off men, after seeing the kind of creeps that hang out at the club. People you’d never expect; supposed saints and community leaders show up here all the time. Most of the time, though, it’s just married men - looking to relive the days in which they were single, now that they have money and status.
People like that, the normal people, will never know how much I envy them. I’d love so much to be a normal woman, with a normal job and a loving spouse to help support my boys, but I fucked up and landed here.
“Hey, back on the pole in five minutes,” Jerry, the club owner, yells at me over the booming music, as I come out of the private room.
“I have a client,” I say, pointing a long red fingernail at the bar, but my client seems to have already found another woman.
Crystal - the blonde with an affinity for drunks. For some reason, she likes to pull the last wad of cash from their pockets and give them shit for being broke at the end of the night. I’ll never know why she gets off on belittling customers, but she does it, without fail, every night she works.
Jerry gives me a tired look, and I know he’s taking a larger cut of my wages than usual if I don’t listen. So, I turn around and head to the dressing room to chalk my hands, and fix my hair, for the next song.
Slipping into the dressing room, I find Amy with a baby wipe, trying desperately to get a stain off the front of her skirt. I don’t even want to know what it is, but I already do. I just try not to think about what she’s been doing, while I check my makeup in the mirror and grab the chalk.
“Another night in paradise,” Amy says with a sigh, working the wipe so deep into her skirt that it begins to crumble and leave even more evidence of her evening wrongdoings.
“Paradise is a nine-to-five, and a bowl of popcorn in front of the TV,” I reply.
She looks up at me with a confused expression. “Now, what the fuck are you on about?”
I shrug. “A girl can dream.”
“Damn, I’m dreaming about a new car and a fat line of coke for breakfast. You have to go the extra mile for that.”
She’s certainly been going the extra mile, but I don’t comment. Everyone here has the right to their own path. Some of us are just here to pay the bills or save for college. Others are looking for an early retirement, while those like Amy are living life on the edge, addicted to the thrill.
I was like that, until I got impregnated by a man I didn’t know. That kind of life takes a turn, sooner or later, and usually it’s a turn right off the highway and straight into a fucking tree.
I wouldn’t trade my three boys for anything, but I would trade this lifestyle in the blink of an eye, if I could.
The song changes, and that’s my cue that I should’ve had my hand wrapped around the pole ten seconds ago.
“Shit,” I hiss, dusting my hands together to shake the excess chalk and trying not to trip over my own heels as I clack loudly out of the dressing room. It’s time to spin on the pole, make some eye contact, and find a new client to help me pay the rent.
There’s a playlist that they have at the Diamond Score, just like every strip club in the county. It plays the same songs every night, in the same order. Every girl has her song, but we don’t get to choose. Mine is something about pills and champagne, almost like its purpose is to taunt me about what brought me here in the first place.
But every night I work, I dance to this song like I’m the sexiest girl in the world, and sometimes I forget about the problems I have. Sometimes, when the music comes on through the stereo right beside the pole, blaring into my eardrums like an angry boss, it’s enough to drown out the rest of me and make me feel like I’ve gone back in time - to plastic bottles of vodka and little square papers with smiley faces on them.
Tonight, however, the music isn’t what brings me back to my reckless past. As my hand grips the silver pole and heads turn to me, pink evening sunlight spills through the front door of the club, and a man walks in who steals the breath from my mouth like a punch to the gut.
Kostin.
